


If I Stop, I Could Lose My Head

by ellieellieoxenfree



Category: Detroit Evolution - Fandom, Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Boys who can't deal with feelings, Emotional avoidance for fun and profit, Gratuitous backstory infodumping, I've got all this baggage and no place to put it, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25649968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellieellieoxenfree/pseuds/ellieellieoxenfree
Summary: Falling in love is easy. Being in love is not.Or: the road to happiness is littered with atom bombs named Gavin Reed.
Relationships: Connor/Upgraded Connor | RK900, Connor/Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed, Gavin Reed - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	1. So I'm Losing You Instead

**Author's Note:**

> I have not played D:BH; thus, any/all canon errors, etc., are mine.

They’d responded to a murder scene once — domestic, an argument that had turned physical — that still occasionally troubles Gavin. ‘Four months,’ the husband had said. He’d gone pale and trembling, barely holding onto the bookend that had struck the fatal blow. Morris had covered the victim with a sheet, but her blood had already ruined the carpet and wallpaper and, in one of those nastily poetic moments, had splashed over the framed wedding photo on the coffee table. 

‘Four months,’ the husband had repeated, fixated on the body at his feet. ‘We had a spring wedding, and she was so beautiful…’ He hadn’t protested when Morris had handcuffed him and led him to the squad car, but he’d begun an ugly snuffling cry on the drive to the precinct. They half-carried him in; he’d gone boneless with remorse and grief, and Gavin couldn’t watch as the officers led him to a cell. 

That night at the bar, Morris drank five bourbons without stopping, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘A hell of a way to end the honeymoon period,’ he said. He’d seemed to have shrunken inside his clothes. 

‘Yeah,’ Gavin said, in lieu of anything else. He’d let the ice melt in his gin, and he didn’t feel much like drinking anyway. 

Three days later, Fowler stopped by Gavin’s desk to tell him Morris had driven his car into a tree over in Warren. ‘He didn’t make it,’ he said.

It took a minute for the words to penetrate the haze of sleep deprivation, and when they did, Gavin found he could only muster a weary lack of surprise. He cast around for the right words. ‘Sorry to hear that,’ he said, finally, without feeling.

Fowler sent him home and told him to rest for a few days. Gavin sat up and chain smoked and stared at the TV until his eyes went blurry and unfocused. He wasn’t sure what he watched; everything looked and sounded the same, and he wasn’t paying attention anyway. Once in a while, he dragged himself to the door to pick up the bag from the Chinese takeout guy. The cat perched on the end of the sofa and studied him with a judgmental eye. Gavin fluttered his fingers limply at her, to no avail. 

‘Four months,’ Gavin said to her, almost unable to comprehend the length of it. He hadn’t even known Morris half that. 

The cat was still, watching him. He tossed a bit of broccoli chicken her way, which she sniffed and ultimately ignored. He left it on the sofa and thought idly about the stain it would leave behind.

They fried the guy, he found out later. Couple thousand volts right to the brain. He took the rest of the day off, powered down his phone, sat with all the blinds closed until it got dark outside.

In the morning, he checked his phone. No messages.

—

There’s differing opinions on the honeymoon phase. ‘I don’t think Valerie’s gotten out of it yet,’ says Tina. Chris errs on the conservative side and says three months. 

Gavin wants to ask if thirteen days seems short, but he just keeps his mouth shut. He doesn’t want to tarnish anyone’s goodwill yet, not when he’s just earned it. Or maybe he doesn’t care so much about Tina and Chris, but he doesn’t want to see disappointment in Nines’ eyes. And there will be, he knows. After everything they’ve just been through, all the confessions, the promises, he can’t look Nines in the eye and say he’s made a mistake.

‘I’ve got to run to Ann Arbor tonight. Meeting a lead about that AV600 fencing case,’ he lies to Nines as the shift comes to a close that evening. 

Nines cocks his head. ‘Who? There hasn’t been any movement on that case lately. I don’t show any updates to the records since — ‘ he pauses to download the file ‘ — Tuesday.’

‘Yeah, forgot to update it.’ Gavin shrugs. ‘I’ll do it when I get back.’

‘Don’t you mean we?’

Gavin’s practiced this one a few times. ‘Nah, the guy’s real skittish about terminators. I show up with you in the car, he’s liable to bolt. Can’t take a chance on it.’

‘What’s his name? Have you run any checks on him?’

‘Goes by the name Skeeter,’ says Gavin, smooth as butter. ‘Didn’t exactly get his IDs. Anyway, do you think you could review the files for that Porter case tonight? I’ve got to run. Got stuff I gotta do beforehand.’

Nines looks murderous. ‘Of course. I’d be _delighted_ to.’

They both know Gavin’s full of shit. _A problem for tomorrow,_ Gavin tells himself as he makes a run for the car. _Or maybe a problem for never._

—

He goes to Ann Arbor, at least, to preserve the fiction, and ends up in some dive bar with a chatty old geezer who screams obscenities when last call arrives. Gavin’s long since sobered up — he doesn’t want to tempt the devil’s own hangover — but the geezer’s set up a howl every time Gavin’s tried to leave, and he finally ends taking the guy to a side road and trying not to watch him piss magnificently into the grass. ‘I’ve got it from here!’ he bellows back to Gavin, and disappears into the night without another word. 

The car stinks of old man and stale booze. Gavin stops at a 24/7 convenience store for a near-tankard of day-old coffee and a fresh pack of cigarettes, wondering how many of them will survive the trip home. He checks the time and ignores the texts he’s gotten from Nines. He’ll use the old guy as Skeeter, he decides. Dead-end lead, wild goose chase, that kind of thing. He’s had plenty of practice in padding reports. Easy enough to fudge some details. 

He drives around Ann Arbor until the sun’s half-up and he’s made a sizable dent in both coffee and cigarettes. For a bit, he debates going home to make himself presentable, but then he remembers how long it’s been since he’s done laundry and he heads straight for the precinct.

Nines is waiting like a disapproving parent. ‘What happened in Ann Arbor?’ 

‘Skeeter was a bust. How’d the Porter case turn out?’ 

‘Tina got a tip late last night, probably when you were having your meeting with Skeeter,’ Nines says. If the words were any sharper, they could take an eye out. ‘They staged a raid and were able to confiscate the merchandise.’

‘Huh,’ says Gavin. ‘Another stop on the road to detective.’ 

‘You didn’t really need me to review the Porter case files.’

‘Sure I did. The timing of the tip was a fluke.’

Nines gives him a venomous look. ‘You know that I can tell when you’re lying, right?’

Gavin pulls out the crumpled bar receipt. ‘See for yourself. Ann Arbor.’

‘There’s not a single record of anything to do with a Skeeter in Ann Arbor in the DPD files.’

‘Dark web contact. The whole point is not being traceable.’

‘And,’ Nines continues, ‘if Skeeter was a bust, why are you coming in late in yesterday’s clothes?’

‘Jesus, Nines, I’ve seen you interrogate actual suspects with less enthusiasm.’

‘Speaking of, Chris wants you in the interrogation room at ten. Although I’m not sure you’re in a fit state for an interrogation.’

‘I’m more than capable of making those choices for myself, tin can. What’s the name?’

‘Cheryl Haney. The witness from the Player’s Lounge assault.’

Gavin remembers the case; some dipshits had gone after a TE600 during a show and the whole thing had ended in bloodshed for all parties. The girls from the club haven’t been thrilled to come forward about it. Cheryl’s the first. 

‘Too important to miss. Tell Chris I’ll be there.’

‘Tell him yourself,’ Nines says crossly. ‘And perhaps this time, you can make sure your notes make it into the system.’

—

Gavin’s aware of Nines’ gaze all afternoon. 

‘You’d better not be scanning me,’ he says, midway through typing the report from Cheryl’s interrogation.

Nines slams the door behind him.

—

Tina invites him out for drinks over at One-Eyed Betty’s to celebrate the Porter raid. The thought of it is noxious, but Gavin figures it’s good to keep up appearances. Besides, his apartment’s become a pigsty lately and he isn’t in the mood to face it quite yet.

Valerie insists on multiple toasts and gives a heartfelt, if extremely drunken, speech to celebrate. Tina blushes fiercely and giggles every time Valerie kisses her. Chris, three sheets to the wind, insists on relaying stories of Tina’s heroism. Gavin plays the good sport and applauds Valerie’s toasts, which has the unfortunate effect of her ordering another round of drinks for the table. Nines is quiet and polite, studiously ignoring Gavin and nursing a thirium cocktail as though it’s the last one on earth. 

Staying awake is a herculean effort. Gavin’s hoping someone else will crash before he does, but no one else is running on a sleepless night in Ann Arbor, and he finally admits defeat when Valerie signals the bartender for a round of shots.

‘Spoilsport,’ she says, more into Tina’s ear than to Gavin himself.

‘My middle name,’ says Gavin, swaying more than a little. God, but he’s drunk. The hangover he’s avoided today will lay him flat tomorrow, he’s sure. 

Nines folds his hands primly. ‘I’ve called you a cab, detective.’

‘Aw, you’re leaving too? You’re so _boring,_ ’ Valerie says. ‘Oh! Shots.’

Gavin takes the opportunity to wish Tina a quick congratulations and Chris a goodnight, or at least what he thinks is each of those. Nines is hot on his heels on the way out of the bar.

‘Don’t worry, sir, I’ll go right home,’ Gavin says, fumbling for a cigarette. It takes several attempts to get the damn thing lit. 

‘As will I,’ Nines says. ‘You don’t seem quite yourself.’

‘Alcohol does that.’ This strikes Gavin as an eminently profound statement in the moment.

‘You’re being obtuse.’

Gavin leans back and looks at him, a gesture his spinning head regrets. ‘Aren’t I always?’

He finishes the cigarette long before the cab arrives. The mixture of whiskey and nicotine makes him agreeable enough to let Nines steer him into the backseat and into his apartment building. By the time they’ve made it up the stairs, Gavin thinks he could curl up on the floor and sleep.

‘I’m staying with you tonight,’ Nines says.

‘Suit yourself,’ says Gavin hazily. Nines could put the entire android population of CyberLife through the apartment for all he cares at this moment. He’s too busily focused on trying to find a clean glass among all the other dishes on the counter. Has he really made this much mess in — how long has it been? He’ll figure it out later. Yes. A sound plan. He makes a note to file that away for future reference.

‘You’re going to break something.’ Gavin feels himself be maneuvered to the table. ’Sit here. I’ll get you water.’

He isn’t sure how he downs the water, much less stands up and makes it to the bedroom. Nines has something to do with it, he thinks, and he’s sure he’ll hate himself for it in the morning.

—

Gavin dreams about the case again, or more accurately he dreams about Morris. Morris and his little blue coupe that he’d smashed into near-unrecognizability against a tree. He’d been so mangled it had taken hours to fully extricate the remains from the wreckage. One of the EMTs said he must have been flooring it to cause that much damage.

The higher ups had forced Gavin into a few weeks with the precinct shrink to make sure he wasn’t more messed up than usual, which was a fancy way of saying they wanted to make sure Gavin didn’t blame himself. ‘There were things going on in his personal life,’ Fowler told him later. ‘Things we weren’t aware of. His marriage was falling apart.’

‘He’s fucking dead, Fowler,’ Gavin said. ‘Give him a little privacy.’

It was an ironic statement. Gavin had read the autopsy report, which had broken down by the various pieces of the body they’d been able to identify. The photos he’d never quite been able to shake. 

In truth, he wasn’t sure if he felt at fault. He’d barely known the guy. Of course, he’d driven off other partners faster than Morris. Barrett had made it a week. Abdurraqib had toughed it out for almost three before he transferred to Dearborn. In that scope of things, Morris might as well have been a lifer. 

Morris’ wife sat in the front pew at the funeral and didn’t let go of a white-knuckled grip on her children’s hands the entire service. Gavin sat in the back and thought about expressing his condolences, but he left a few minutes before the service ended and never said a word to anybody. 

He went out on lunch a few days later and bought a cheap sympathy card, wrote some kind of generic ‘sorry for your loss’ message on it, unsure of what else to say. He sent it without a signature or return address and hoped she got it.

—

The bed is soaked in sweat when Gavin wakes up and the hangover is ringing an insistent churchbell peal behind his left eye. He shakes his head to clear the last images of Morris’ autopsy from his mind and feels as though he’s sent an anvil clanging through his skull.

Nines has left pills and a glass of water on the nightstand. The gesture irritates Gavin, but not enough not to take them. He feels like enough shit as it is.

He showers in the dark. The smell of One-Eyed Betty’s is clinging to his skin, or maybe everything’s still heightened and he’s just imagining it. 

Naturally, there isn’t a clean shirt in the place, so he settles for the one that’s been lying at the bottom of the laundry mountain in the corner of the bedroom. It’s wrinkled, but unstained, which is good enough for now.

Nines is on the sofa, as Gavin has figured he would be. He’s picture-perfect, poised and ramrod straight. ‘Detective.’

‘You don’t have to yell, Nines.’ 

‘I’m speaking in a perfectly normal tone of voice. I trust you found the pills I left you?’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Gavin can’t remember if he has any coffee left, or if he’s even capable of making it right now. At this point, he’d probably chew on the grounds.

‘A fresh pot of coffee is brewing,’ Nines says, as though reading his mind. ‘I put it on while you were showering.’

‘Surprised you didn’t roll out the red carpet,’ says Gavin, who notes that the counter is free of dirty dishes. He sprawls into a kitchen chair, waiting for the coffee to finish percolating. Every sound makes his teeth hurt.

Nines ignores the remark. ‘The medication should alleviate your worst symptoms within twenty-seven minutes. I would recommend that you get more sleep, but I doubt you’ll take the advice.’

‘Probably not.’ It’s not the first time lately he’s dreamed about Morris, or that last case. Better to avoid sleep as much as possible.

Common sense says he should bring it up to Nines. He can’t dance around the issue forever. But Nines already knows about Fowler and the red ice. It isn’t fair to keep dumping messes at his feet, least of all this one.

The coffee machine beeps in completion, and Gavin jumps, immediately regretting the movement. Twenty-seven minutes might as well be twenty-seven years. 

Nines sets down the coffee mug in near-silence and retreats to the sofa, as if to say, _Your call now._

Gavin wraps his hands around the mug and inhales. It’ll probably take the better part of the pot to feel human again, he figures. 

In actuality, it takes three full mugs and a cigarette, begrudgingly smoked on the balcony with one hand shielding his eyes from the sun. The hangover slowly softens its edges and settles into a dull roar.

Focusing on work will help take care of the rest. ‘You work on any cases last night?’ he says to Nines, who has taken to petting the cat. _Well, at least someone in this house is having a good day._

‘Nothing that you need to concern yourself with,’ Nines says. ‘I noticed that you’d downloaded all the files on the Emerson homicide from several years back. Was there a reason for that?’

Gavin’s mouth goes dry. Shit, he’d created an excuse for that, and now he can’t remember it. ‘It’s, uh, related to — ‘ Fuck. Shit. ‘I needed to confirm some details.’

‘Ah,’ says Nines, clearly unconvinced. Gavin makes a clumsy beeline for a fourth cup of coffee to avoid looking at him. He could kick himself for not hiding the records. 

‘Why this case, though? Fairly pedestrian uxoricide, all things considered,’ Nines says. ‘Open and shut.’

‘I don’t want to talk about Nate.’ It comes out more forcefully than Gavin anticipates. Fucking Nate Emerson, in the grave eight years and not laid to rest.

‘Because of Detective Morris?’

Officially, the death had been declared an accident. Off the record, it was generally accepted it had been a suicide. The worst of the injuries had been incurred due to his not wearing a seatbelt, something even Gavin knew he’d never do. Morris was one of those sticklers who wouldn’t even pull out of the lot without safety double checks. The coroner had chalked it up to stress and the late hour, but nobody at the precinct bought into that. Somebody tried to start a rumor he did it to get away from Gavin, but Fowler caught wind of it and brought it to a swift end.

It unsettles him to know that of everyone who’d been in the Emerson living room that day, he’s the only one still standing.

‘Gavin?’

He jolts back to reality. ‘What? Uh — nothing.’ He hopes that’s an appropriate answer to whatever Nines has asked. ‘Look, I’m probably going to go back to the precinct, follow up on some leads I got from the interrogation.’ 

‘It’s taken care of already.’ Nines is studying him with concern. ‘What happened with the Emerson murder?’

Gavin feels his chest constrict. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘I have time.’ Endlessly patient.

Gavin’s at a crossroads now. He wishes that he’d been smart enough to wipe the data off the tablet, but now there’s no hiding it. For a few moments, he debates downplaying the whole situation. No, he decides. If he’s going to torpedo another relationship, he might as well go full-bore with it.

He takes a moment to situate himself, sitting far enough away that he’s out of arm’s length, and tries to figure out where to begin. The cat, sensing the mood, bolts for the bedroom.

‘Start from the beginning,’ Nines suggests softly.

Gavin exhales into his hands.

‘The media made Nate Emerson out to be this psycho, but he was…kind of a schlub. You know, that real save the whales, world peace now, smile for everybody kinda guy. Crazy about his wife. Called her his guiding star. Real fairytale shit.’

There had barely been anything left of the person Nate Emerson when they’d brought him in. More the shell of a human being with Nate Emerson’s face. They’d culled all the personal information they could, and the contrast between the shivering husk of a guy Gavin had met and the vibrant, happy Nate on record was jarring. 

Nines moves a little closer. Gavin looks away, feigning ignorance.

‘They moved into a place in Royal Oak when they got married and Nate got a new job. He taught middle-school history. Had a great track record. The kids from his old school in Indiana loved him. Nobody at the new place had a bad word to say about him, until Sophie got killed.’ Gavin pauses and takes a sip of coffee, gone bitter and cold. He’s beginning to open the lid of a box he’d rather keep closed. 

Keep going, he tells himself.

‘They had this rosebush in the backyard,’ he says. ‘Sophie had a green thumb, and she’d been cultivating this thing since it was a cutting. Nate had left the hose uncoiled and I guess it crushed part of the rosebush. Sophie went ballistic, and they ended up in this screaming match. Nate lost his temper, and…’

‘And he murdered Sophie,’ Nines finishes. 

Gavin can’t suppress a shudder. There’s some dead bodies he’s never forgotten, and Sophie Emerson’s is one of them. Her hair had been spread in a gruesome, blood-clotted halo around what had been left of her face, frozen in an expression of horror. The news had run countless pictures of her during the trial — petite redhead with a thousand-watt smile, the kind of victim that makes for good nightly coverage. They’d kept putting up her wedding photo with Nate, the two of them looking deliriously in love. It looked strange to Gavin without the blood spatters obscuring them.

‘Nate was a fucking mess when we brought him in. We practically had to drag him. He wasn’t any better at the trial. They had me testify since, you know…’ he gestures. 

Nines nods.

‘The media tore him apart. They called him a honeymoon killer, had all these fake expert talking heads on the news every night diagnosing him with God knows what. The guy could hardly sit up straight in his chair. The judge actually threatened at one point to have him strapped to it so he didn’t slide onto the floor. The media spun it as him being a violent danger who had to be restrained.’ He laughs, bitterly. ‘It didn’t help that Morris killed himself right afterwards. They kept saying Nate was responsible for it, like some guy with fifteen years in homicide would have been driven over the edge by it.’

‘The reports say it was an accident,’ Nines objects.

‘You can find the divorce petition online,’ says Gavin. ‘His wife was asking for full custody. Apparently he was drinking, had gambling debts. All this shit that nobody at work knew about — he hid it real well. They had a meeting with the lawyers the day he died. Didn’t go well.’ Another swig of ice-cold coffee. ‘But the media blamed Nate, because it made for good copy.’

‘You sound very…sympathetic towards Nate,’ Nines says. ‘Why?’

Gavin grinds the heels of his palms against his eyes. ‘Because he didn’t make sense. Crimes of passion happen, sure. But he was the opposite of a violent guy. Always had been.’

‘Until he wasn’t.’

‘Yeah. Until he wasn’t.’ He traces the lip of the mug. ‘So either he was a damn good liar, or he was a good guy who made a terrible mistake.’ Gavin doesn’t like the feeling of pitying a murderer. His entire life has been about bringing scumbags to justice, and it’s never sat right with him that he’s still bothered by Nate Emerson.

_You know why._

He hasn’t realized how close Nines has moved until there’s the pressure of a hand on his. 

_You don’t deserve this._

Gavin forces himself not to move. There had been a time, once, when he would have been revolted by the sight of androids interfacing. Now he sees the white plastic of Nines’ fingers and it’s strangely comforting.

_You’re not allowed to have this._

‘And that bothers you.’ Nines squeezes his hand gently.

When they’d given Nate the death penalty, he’d looked almost relieved. Gavin had overheard Choua, who’d taken him to the electric chair, talking about how eerily composed he’d been about the execution. ‘No last meal, no last words, nothing,’ she said. ‘About the only thing he did was smile when they put the cap on him.’ 

Four months. 

They let Gavin go without a partner for a little while after Morris’ death, just to make sure he was okay. Montgomery was the first guy they tried, a big bear of a guy who had no problem wading through a crime scene to carry a suspect off by the scruff of his neck. Gavin picked a fight with him a couple weeks in and wound up with a couple of cracked ribs, two black eyes, and a couple months of desk duty. Fowler stopped by to personally tell him to get his shit together.

Gavin had not only failed to get his shit together; he’d burned through three more partners in short order. Dating he’d given up after Sophie’s murder, although he figured with his track record, he could have stopped trying long before that and saved himself the trouble. It all dulled over, eventually, or he just got better at living with it.

Or he’d thought he had, at least. 

‘Nate did all the right things, and then he ended up destroying somebody else,’ Gavin says finally. It feels as though he’s pulling the words out one by one from some dark, hidden core of himself. ‘Morris did all the wrong things, and he ended up destroying himself.’ He gives Nines a crooked smile. ‘Felt like somebody was showing me the only two ways I was gonna end up, and now I’m waiting to find out which one it’s gonna be.’


	2. There's One Particular Way I Have to Choose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this: thank you. If you enjoyed it: I love you. This is a labor of terror and love in equal measure.

The car was freezing.

‘Here, use this.’ The cop handed Gavin a towel he’d rummaged up from the backseat. ‘Tilt your head forward.’

‘I know how to handle a bloody nose,’ Gavin mumbled into the towel. He hadn’t been in this many fights not to know how to deal with shit like this.

‘You’re a fuckin’ mess, kid,’ the cop said. ‘How old are you?’

‘Eighteen.’ He fudged it a little.

‘You got family?’

‘Not really.’ Gavin flexed the fingers of his free hand experimentally, trying to get feeling back in them. Didn’t feel like any of them were broken, at least. Torn up to hell and back, though. He’d gotten in some good punches, but it was five on one and a good punch meant jack shit with those odds.

The cop eased the car back onto 10 Mile. ‘You got a place to stay, at least?’

‘More or less.’ He wouldn’t be hanging up any Home Sweet Home signs — they’d probably get stolen, like everything else he owned — but the landlord looked the other way about renting to underage kids and gave him a discount on rent for the occasional red ice palm-off. He’d have to figure out something else to do to bring in the cash now.

‘Well, get yourself cleaned up as best you can,’ the cop said. ‘It’s too cold to be out wandering. Who jumped you?’

The bleeding had slowed. Gavin set the towel down and probed the swollen, aching lump that had once been his nose. ‘Just some guys.’

‘I’m not gonna arrest you. You’ve got the signs of a Viper beatdown. If you were in good with them, you wouldn’t look like — ‘ he gestures — ‘that.’ 

‘You make a habit of knowing that on sight?’ 

‘Kid, I’m a cop. I pulled you off the street two blocks away from confirmed Viper turf in the middle of a fuckin’ January night. You’ve got more blood on you than in you, and you’ve got the look everybody gets when they realize what kind of life dealing is. They get you on red ice?’

Gavin hesitated. ‘Dealing. I didn’t take any of it.’

‘Then you’re not as stupid as you look,’ the cop — Fowler, he said his name was — said encouragingly. ‘Come on, I’ll take you to Telway. Doubt you’ve had a good meal in days.’

Telway was deserted except for the line cook. ‘Luann went home with her bunions,’ he told Fowler, unfazed by Gavin’s bloody appearance. ‘You find another stray?’

‘Yeah. Load him up. If the spoon doesn’t stand up in the coffee, pour it out and make a new batch.’

Gavin tried not to wolf down the plate of sliders the cook gave him, but Fowler scoffed at him. ‘You’re long past the point of dignity. Just eat the damn burgers before you starve to death.’

He still looked wretched, but he didn’t feel quite as awful by the time Fowler dropped him off at the shoebox he called an apartment. ‘Look,’ Fowler said, pulling his card out of his pocket. ‘Make yourself decent and come down to the precinct this week. We could use an intern.’

‘You’re fucking with me,’ Gavin said. The business card might as well have been a winning lottery ticket.

Fowler gave him a long, cold look. ‘You want the internship, show up. You don’t, then don’t bother.’

Gavin sat in the shower for a while, washing the rest of the blood down the drain and feeling out his newly-formed bruises. It took a while to get himself patched up. He wouldn’t be presentable for a while, not among people of Fowler’s ilk who had their shit together.

He gave it a couple of days and went to the precinct anyway.

—

Fowler worked him to the bone, which was fine by Gavin. It wasn’t as though he had much going on outside of the job. 

He was on good behavior for a while; desperation made for a tougher boss than Fowler could ever be. The downside was that nobody liked a brown-noser, and he got the label pretty early on. Anybody who constantly stayed after hours, picked up the menial tasks, and never made a peep of complaint was suspect — and besides, everybody knew he was a special pet Fowler had brought in. Gavin ignored them, mostly because he didn’t have anywhere else to go if he blew this. He developed a taste for the shitty precinct coffee to keep moving through sixteen-hour days, but those ended when Fowler found him and gave him a gentle reminder upside the head that he was an intern, not a fucking charity case, he wasn't getting paid for that much overtime, and go the fuck _home_ , Reed. 

Gavin, with throbbing skull, trudged back to the shoebox.

He couldn’t really afford to leave it, not when he had to play catch-up with GED classes, then community college classes. The landlord had given him the stink eye when he dropped off his rent for the first time without the customary rock of red ice. 

‘Where is it?’ he said. No preamble. 

Gavin gestured at his still-healing injuries. ‘I’m not in it anymore. I don’t have any.’

‘Ah, for fuck’s _sake_ ,’ said the landlord, and flapped a greedy motion with his hand. ‘Extra two-fifty a month, or you’re out.’

The apartment wasn’t even worth two-fifty in the first place, let alone on top of what he was already paying. Gavin didn’t have a choice, though, so he ponied up the cash and learned how to stretch one cup o’ noodles into a day’s food and ration out cigarettes into a way to trick his stomach into feeling full. 

Every month when he went in to pay the rent, the landlord looked a little more haggard. He’d obviously found a new dealer, and he was upping his habit. 

It fucked with Gavin to know that could have been him if he’d stuck with the Vipers. He’d gotten out before he had started dipping into the stash, but it happened more often than not. A lot of the low-level stooges got hooked on the dealer life early, the way he had, and red ice was a good way to make up for how shitty it felt to be poor and trapped with a whole lot of empty decades stretching in front of you.

Gavin found himself taking fidgety smoke breaks — trying, futilely, to stretch each cigarette over multiple trips — to tamp down the guilt he felt about enabling the guy’s addiction. He’d sort of gone on autopilot for a while while he was dealing, shutting out the human component of the whole business. Now he had to own up to it.

—

The Vipers got busted early in Gavin’s career, but it wasn’t long before the power vacuum got filled by a group that made them look like children’s party clowns. White Wolf had more men, more firepower, and a punched-up strain of red ice. DPD sent a guy named Kertz in undercover to infiltrate, and White Wolf sent his hands back in two neatly arranged boxes.

Gavin wheedled Fowler into a spot on the fledgling task force, which largely consisted of making himself a nuisance and earning more disgust than usual from his colleagues for being such a kiss-ass.

‘You got a death wish?’ Fowler said.

‘I’m capable of this, and you know it,’ Gavin argued, sidestepping the question. The team was mostly way above his seniority level, but he knew he could outwork half of them in a given day. Besides, he felt an obligation to take the fuckers down.

Fowler finally signed off on the authorization. ‘Put your shit in a box so we don’t have to take the time to clean out your space,’ he told Gavin.

‘I knew you believed in me,’ Gavin said.

— 

The other guys on the task force hated his guts. Gavin tried to just keep his head down and focus on the case, but at this point, he was running low on tolerance.

If they wanted him to be an asshole, he’d be an asshole.

—

They had an android on the team, some special analytical model. Gavin didn’t bother to learn its name or try to communicate with it in any way. Androids freaked him out. There was something so blandly unnatural about them that he couldn’t stand. They didn’t have to try or learn, they just showed up on the job and processed years’ worth of training immediately without having to put any effort into it. 

He saw it get shot on a minor raid they staged on a White Wolf safe house. The thing made a sad sort of ‘ohhh’ whirring noise and went down to its knees for a bit, thirium soaking through its clothes, but Gavin saw it palling around the precinct a couple days later no worse for the wear. He called it a couple of slurs and ended up in a fistfight with Schultz out behind the precinct. Fowler popped them both on desk duty for a week and reminded them how precarious their spots on the White Wolf task force were. It only fueled Gavin’s hatred.

—

Being on the team was more soul-crushing than anything Gavin had ever done. White Wolf was always a step ahead, and their supply chain seemed unbreakable. DPD would stage a raid, confiscate some goods, and a new area would spring up across town by the next night. 

Nobody ever went home or slept. They basically lived at the precinct if they weren’t out on stakeouts or raids. The higher-ups tried to implement staff rotations, but nobody listened to the rules. Gavin bought cigarettes by the carton. Somebody installed a cheap espresso machine in the kitchen, which ran incessantly until it finally worked itself to death a few months later, and then they just filled the fridge with off-brand energy drinks instead.

Tensions ran high. Everybody hated Gavin, but they hated each other, too. Whatever camaraderie they’d had at the outset wore thin quick. Even though White Wolf was the real target of their ire, you couldn’t get pissed at a ghost the way you could at Lopez for slurping his drink too loudly at morning briefings. There was a common crack about how they might as well start drawing straws for who had to go out on joint missions each time.

By the time they brought White Wolf down a good three years later, everybody could hardly stand to be in the same room with each other for the promotion ceremony. Gavin was disgusted to see the android at the end of the line. It had been the only member of the unit to stay calm under fire — metaphorical and literal — and he resented the hell out of it.

—

Everybody got shuffled around after the original task force disbanded, mostly because there were concerns they would kill each other if they had to be around each other for five more minutes. Fowler gave Gavin a laconic new hire from Toledo by the name of O’Brien, ostensibly to calm him down after the frenetic Wolf years.

Gavin hated him on sight. O’Brien wasn’t a bad detective, but he took things too slow and it drove Gavin up the wall. To make matters worse, he was a family man and carved out time for his kids. The idea of having dinner that wasn’t a vending machine Slim Jim right before he went back to work was anathema to Gavin. It pissed him off in a way he chose not to think about too much.

He needled O’Brien incessantly, taking every single lesson he’d learned over the years to make himself a bigger and bigger pain in the ass. It worked. O’Brien got a transfer over to Robbery as soon as the papers went through. 

It seemed like a pretty hollow victory the first time Gavin came into the office and saw O’Brien’s empty desk, but he figured the feeling would pass.

—

Josephs didn’t even make it half the time O’Brien had.

‘They weren’t kidding about what a prick you are,’ he told Gavin as a parting shot. ‘Hope I see your body on the news one of these days.’

Gavin kicked his feet up on the desk. ‘Don’t flirt, your wife won’t like it.’ 

—

Fowler, sick of transfer paperwork and petty inter-departmental squabbling, finally banned Gavin from any task force assignments and started cracking down on overtime. Gavin sulked around the house for a while in the evenings before he finally started making circles of the area bars. He wouldn’t admit it to himself, but without the distractions of work, he was plagued by a dull pang of loneliness. 

Ted played synth in a little three-man outfit called Midnight Creepers that had a standing engagement at PJ’s on Thursday nights. Gavin originally didn’t notice him — the band was fronted by a tiny blonde whirlwind who commanded all the attention in the room, and he had a vague crush on her until her girlfriend showed up after a show — but when he did, he found himself at PJ’s as many Thursday nights as he could, trying to sit close enough to get a good view without outright ogling Ted. It was the first time in years he’d actually thought about pursuing somebody seriously. There had been occasional dates, fewer second dates, almost no thirds; some hookups here and there, with promises on both sides not to call back. The very few relationships that had threatened to blossom got smothered under his work schedule or his attitude. The fact that he was showing up for Midnight Creepers shows as often as he did was a sign that he had it bad.

It took Gavin so long to work up the courage to ask Ted out that Ted finally just took pity on him and slipped him his number. ‘I’m free Saturday,’ he said over his shoulder on the way out of PJ’s. 

‘Fuck,’ said Gavin to his beer.

They did well for the first couple of months. Ted was the model boyfriend -- sunny and supportive and caring. Gavin was keeping himself on a short leash, trying to reach Ted’s bright heights, doing his best to be somebody who wasn’t himself. But soon enough, he could feel it falling apart.

It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Ted; he just didn’t know how to balance the two halves of himself. He couldn’t let the emotions bleed into his job, but he couldn’t let the job bleed into the model life he was trying to build with Ted. He could feel the resentment kicking in, and he knew it wasn’t Ted’s fault, but there wasn’t anywhere to put it. He started making excuses for missing the shows at PJ’s, started volunteering again for night stakeouts and dogsbody jobs, drove off another partner at work. Ted was sympathetic at first — ‘Hey, man, you’re a detective, I get it,’ he said, shoving his hair out of his eyes and dropping a kiss on Gavin’s cheek — but it wouldn’t last. The absences were causing tension between them, which only made Gavin moodier and more difficult to deal with when they were together. Ted wasn’t wrong to want to spend time with him, but trying to be somebody else was more and more exhausting for Gavin. He wanted to be a good person, to be what Ted needed, but doing it meant shoving down all the anger and bitterness that gnawed at him day after day. He’d been pulling the asshole routine so long he didn’t even know where it stopped and the rest of him began, or if there was even anything of a person left.  


Part of the problem was that the things he loved about Ted were the things that also curdled in the pit of his stomach. Ted was vibrant and happy and surrounded by people who adored him. They could hardly go out on dates without someone spotting them five minutes in and interrupting things with a wave or a quick chat. It would have bothered Gavin less if he could have just faded into the background where he belonged, but Ted always insisted on making a big production out of including him, touching his arm or lacing their fingers during the conversation, asking his opinion, laughing at his jokes. He looked so proud to be out with Gavin, and every day began to feel like a bigger and bigger lie.

They started to fight, Ted baring his heart unashamedly in a way Gavin never could. Seeing it tore Gavin up inside. He didn’t want to fuck up the relationship, but he didn’t know how to fix things. The love was there, but he had no way to express it. 

It turned out not to matter anyway. Gavin got home one day and found an orange crate of all the stuff he’d lent Ted sitting outside his door with a note that said _I can’t be the only one in this relationship_. He threw out everything he’d lent, tore the note into tiny shreds, and got himself so blasted he woke up at four am on the kitchen floor, the cat sniffing gingerly at him. His only consolation was that he’d been too wasted to drunk-dial Ted.

Gavin avoided PJ’s for a while, worried about seeing anybody from Midnight Creepers, but he finally steeled up enough courage to do it. It was a mistake. Even though it wasn’t their night to perform, he saw Ted at the bar holding hands with another guy, the both of them looking blissful and entirely disconnected from the rest of the world.

_Serves you right,_ he told himself. At least Ted was happy. He deserved far more than Gavin had ever given him.

And then, like some cosmic kick to the teeth, Sophie Emerson had gotten murdered.

—

He got a pretty good rhythm going: partners came and went, cases came and went. Scar tissue built up over the losses, or Gavin liked to think it did. Memories plagued him every so often and he smashed them down ruthlessly. 

Eventually, he started a hesitant rapport with a couple of the cops he got assigned out with, or at least with the ones who would just politely look away when he got worse to deal with than usual. Chris even invited him out for drinks like a normal coworker. Gavin turned him down less as time went by, but he still kept everybody at arm’s length. It was better for them that way.

—

Fowler called him in again. ‘You ever think about learning to tell between your mouth and your fists?’

‘Lotta situations call for escalation in this town.’ It came out a little funny around the puffy lip, which hadn’t fully healed before Gavin had re-split it.

’Somehow, everybody else manages to keep their collars out of traction.’

‘Not everybody. I could name names.’ 

‘Don’t get fresh with me,’ Fowler barked. ‘You want to be so deep in filing you’re gonna be shitting manila a year from now? I say the word and you won’t be seeing anything more exciting than the inside of a paper box until you’re too decrepit to chase a perp.’

Gavin grinned, which hurt like hell. ‘Yeah, but you’d miss my numbers.’

‘I wouldn’t miss what a goddamn PR nightmare you are. Anyway, they lined up another new partner for you.’ Fowler shoved a folder across the desk. ‘Non-negotiable. You’ve run out of everybody else.’

‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. A toaster? It’s not bad enough to have Connor around, now I gotta have another one trotting at my heels?’

‘Filing room’s mighty chilly this time of year.’ 

‘Still starting to sound like a better idea,’ Gavin grumbled, flipping through the personnel file. RK900. Some new model. How lucky for him.

‘I’d miss your numbers. Now get the fuck out of my office.’

—

‘Smoking will kill you, detective.’

‘So will your nagging.’ Gavin took a long, spiteful drag. ‘Guess which way’s gonna be a more pleasant way to go.’

‘As your new partner, I have a duty to warn you when you engage in potentially unsafe or unhealthy behaviors.’ Language right off the fuckin’ assembly line. ‘By that definition, I do not believe my notations qualify as nagging.’

‘By my definition, you’re a pain in the ass, RK900.’

‘That is your opinion, detective. As it is a subjective statement, I will refrain from agreeing or disagreeing.’

_Weirdo fuck,_ Gavin thought. God, he hated Fowler for getting him into this mess.

—

He didn’t _like_ RK900, but he could at least be useful once in a while. Gavin started pawning the shit jobs off on him like his own personal intern. RK900 did it all without a word. Gavin occasionally even tested having him make a cup of coffee. 

‘It actually tastes like...coffee,’ he observed, with more than a little surprise. Long years at the precinct had desensitized him to how terrible the stuff actually was, but the cup RK900 made didn’t taste like it had been made from garbage bag grounds.

‘Of course,’ said RK900, and Gavin swore he could see the little shit smirking.

— 

When they got to six months of their partnership, Tina put a congratulations card on Gavin’s desk. _You reached for the stars and made it!_ it read, over a drawing of an astronaut giving the thumbs up. Gavin rolled his eyes and tossed it, but he saw Nines rescue it later. 

It made him smile a little. A horrifying revelation.

—

Losing people had always been a fact of life. There weren’t that many people Gavin had really ever cared about as an adult — Fowler, for pulling him out of the pit; Ted, for those few shining months before Gavin had blown the whole thing to hell; Tina and Chris, for putting up with him — but Nines was on a different level. Fowler had seen the ugly, vulnerable side of him, but had been content to discard the parental role as soon as Gavin proved he could stand on his own two feet. Nines had watched Gavin crumble more than once, and still offered a hand each time. 

_You love me._

Nines had been right, goddamn him. God damn him. God damn him for digging deep enough to find the beating heart. 

—

Spilling the whole Emerson story makes Gavin feel nauseated and anxious. ‘Excuse me,’ he says to Nines, without looking at him, and he grabs his cigarettes on his way out to the balcony. His hands are shaking so badly he can hardly light the cigarette. He doesn’t even taste it, but the familiarity of the motions soothes him some. 

His insides feel like a crush of broken glass. He’d puke if he thought he could expel the emotion, but it’s seeped into his bones. Like it’s bonded to him. Become him.

There’s no way Nines emerges from this without becoming collateral damage. 

_Who do you want to sacrifice? You or him?_

Nines can easily just wipe the memory of Gavin from his programming and go on with his life. It would be easy enough for him to just treat Gavin like a stranger, just another one of those assholes in the precinct. That’s what would be best for him: flipping a switch and forgetting Gavin Reed ever existed.

He’ll be fine. They’ll both be fine. 

—

Gavin smokes another cigarette before he goes back in, and lights a third he just lets burn down halfway.

‘Are you feeling better?’ Nines says when he finally drags himself back inside.

No sense in lying. ‘Not really.’

‘You haven’t eaten today. It’s not healthy.’

_You sound like Fowler._

‘Not eating is the least of my problems, Nines.’ 

Nines changes tacks. ‘I appreciate that you told me about the Emerson case. I was unaware of the specifics, or that it had affected you so badly.’

‘Yeah, well. Surprise, I guess.’ 

‘It took a great deal of courage,’ Nines says. ‘But I didn’t believe you.’

Rage bubbles up and explodes in one swift motion. ‘You don’t fucking _believe_ me, Nines? Go look at the records — I didn’t pull the facts out of thin fucking air.’

‘I reviewed the records while you were outside,’ says Nines, entirely implacable. ‘They corroborate your account. But this idea that your future became this either-or path? That I cannot condone.’

Gavin snorts. ‘I didn’t ask you to sign off on it. Whether or not it agrees with your… _interpretation_ of the situation doesn’t change how it is.’ 

‘And what makes you so certain that your interpretation is correct?’ Nines challenges, rising to his feet. 

‘Maybe the fact that you almost fucking died two weeks ago.’

‘What happened with Ada was...unfortunate, but hardly indicative of this — ‘ Nines stops. ‘It wasn’t your _fault._ ’

Listening to Nines’ casual downplaying of his own existence sends an icy wave through Gavin. 

_I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost you._

No. He can’t go down that path. 

‘Bullshit. I shouldn’t have just taken Ada at her word. If I hadn’t been distracted, I would have seen something was off about her.’

‘You hardly treated her like a person in the first place,’ Nines says coldly. His LED glows a furious red. ‘And I don’t appreciate you using me as a pawn in this. No one _blames_ you, Gavin, except you. You’re distracted, but only by your need to be right, no matter what it costs.’

‘This wasn’t some minor scuffle in the line of duty! You barely recovered.’ The memory of Nines lying pale and still and unresponsive hasn’t scabbed over yet, as much as Gavin wishes it would.

Funny how when it’s someone else’s life on the line, it starts to matter.

‘I recovered because _you_ brought me back,’ Nines says softly. ‘No one else could have broken through.’

‘I should have made sure you didn’t end up like that in the first place!’ shouts Gavin. So Nines is safe this time — what about the next? Or the next? When the grenade goes off, which one of them will be in its radius? 

He rubs his face with his hand. ‘Look. We just...can’t do this. It’s not going to work.’

—

_Don’t look at me like that. I was already gone before you found me._

—

Losing Nines is everything Gavin is terrified of. It’s the third fork in the road — the one that leaves them both able to move forward from each other — but the thought of it is almost too much to contemplate. 

He’s burned so many bridges that it shouldn’t matter, but it does this time. It’s as though Gavin’s spent all those years since he broke up with Ted suppressing all the love he could give somebody, and now it’s out there and he can’t bottle the feelings back up.

_I don’t want this. I don’t want this._

But nobody gets what they want in this world, do they?


End file.
